Two experiments examined responses to fabricated newspaper reports about a protest. In Experiment 1, 58 females and 49 males (mean age: 20.28) read about a protest by farmers who were violent or non-violent, and whose actions were approved of or not approved of by authorities from the farming community. Participants rated their anger at the protestors, the legitimacy of the protest, their attitude to the farming community, and their attitudinal support for the protest aims. The study found that violence produced greater anger, but only in the approval condition. Experiment 2, with 53 female and 33 male participants (mean age: 20.28), added measures of moral outrage and behavioural support. Experiment 2 found an effect of violence on anger, revealed legitimacy as a mediator of this effect, and found that legitimacy was correlated with behavioural support. The findings provided some support for hypotheses, but their interpretation was hindered by a crossover effect in the manipulations such that participants seemed to infer violence from the presence of disapproval.